Anna Karenina eBook

“Yes, that may all be very true and clever....
Lie down, Krak!” Stepan Arkadyevitch called
to his dog, who was scratching and turning over all
the hay. He was obviously convinced of the correctness
of his position, and so talked serenely and without
haste. “But you have not drawn the line
between honest and dishonest work. That I receive
a bigger salary than my chief clerk, though he knows
more about the work than I do—­that’s
dishonest, I suppose?”

“I can’t say.”

“Well, but I can tell you: your receiving
some five thousand, let’s say, for your work
on the land, while our host, the peasant here, however
hard he works, can never get more than fifty roubles,
is just as dishonest as my earning more than my chief
clerk, and Malthus getting more than a station-master.
No, quite the contrary; I see that society takes
up a sort of antagonistic attitude to these people,
which is utterly baseless, and I fancy there’s
envy at the bottom of it....”

“No, that’s unfair,” said Veslovsky;
“how could envy come in? There is something
not nice about that sort of business.”

“You say,” Levin went on, “that
it’s unjust for me to receive five thousand,
while the peasant has fifty; that’s true.
It is unfair, and I feel it, but...”

“It really is. Why is it we spend our
time riding, drinking, shooting, doing nothing, while
they are forever at work?” said Vassenka Veslovsky,
obviously for the first time in his life reflecting
on the question, and consequently considering it with
perfect sincerity.

“Yes, you feel it, but you don’t give
him your property,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch,
intentionally, as it seemed, provoking Levin.

There had arisen of late something like a secret antagonism
between the two brothers-in-law; as though, since they
had married sisters, a kind of rivalry had sprung
up between them as to which was ordering his life
best, and now this hostility showed itself in the
conversation, as it began to take a personal note.

“I don’t give it away, because no one
demands that from me, and if I wanted to, I could
not give it away,” answered Levin, “and
have no one to give it to.”

“Give it to this peasant, he would not refuse
it.”

“Yes, but how am I to give it up? Am I
to go to him and make a deed of conveyance?”

“I don’t know; but if you are convinced
that you have no right...”

“I’m not at all convinced. On the
contrary, I feel I have no right to give it up, that
I have duties both to the land and to my family.”

“No, excuse me, but if you consider this inequality
is unjust, why is it you don’t act accordingly?...”

“Well, I do act negatively on that idea, so
far as not trying to increase the difference of position
existing between him and me.”

“No, excuse me, that’s a paradox.”

“Yes, there’s something of a sophistry
about that,” Veslovsky agreed. “Ah!
our host; so you’re not asleep yet?” he
said to the peasant who came into the barn, opening
the creaking door. “How is it you’re
not asleep?”